You get in your bathing suit and go sit in the hot tub. It's dusk. You bring the new book you bought earlier but don't read it. Instead you sit there thinking about your dead ex-boyfriend and of how proud he would be if he could see how mature and stable and sober and responsible you've become. You start to cry because you miss him, because you feel lonely, because it's saturday night and you wish you were somewhere else, doing something fun, not sitting here, alone. But what if spilling tears in a hot tub is what your heart needs now? What if this is how you heal? Maybe sitting in silence submerged in water without any substances in your system will finally give you the clarity you've been seeking. God knows you tried all the opposites already. God knows you've tried to outrun all these thoughts already but you're never fast enough.
You recline your head back and look up at the now dark sky, sprinkled with stars. You try counting them and get to fifty, unsure if somewhere in there a plane or satellite snuck its way in. Apparently you need glasses now. Still, you see three of the stars that make up the big dipper and that brings you comfort because you remember spotting them in Brazil as a child. Maybe not that much has changed, after all.
When your skin folds in like an old woman's, you leave the hot tub, shower, and feed yourself popcorn and a frozen entree for dinner as you watch a series about an orphan girl called Anne who is all alone in the world.
Around ten p.m., you drift off to sleep as Anne finds a family and falls in love in the background.
I'm writing about your death and the aftermath because I know it's what you would want me to do.There are easier things to do than to write about death on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
For them, for me, but mostly for you.
I have been kissing. A lot.